How Does Household Portfolio Diversification Vary with Financial Literacy and Financial Advice?

Household investment mistakes are an important concern for researchers and policymakers alike. Portfolio underdiversification ranks among those mistakes that are potentially most costly. However, its roots and empirical importance are poorly understood. I estimate quantitatively meaningful diversification statistics and investigate their relationship with key variables. Nearly all households that score high on financial literacy or rely on professionals or private contacts for advice achieve reasonable investment outcomes. Compared to these groups, households with below‐median financial literacy that trust their own decision‐making capabilities lose an expected 50 bps on average. All group differences stem from the top of the loss distribution.     

Introduction to the Financial Street

The reply of the State Council to the Overall Planning of Beijing City as of October 1993 clearly pointed out that "the national financial management center shall be set up in the area of Financial Street in the belt from Fuchengmen     

Financial Protectionism? First Evidence

We examine large public interventions in the financial sector, such as bank nationalizations and search for “financial protectionism,” a decrease in the quantity and/or an increase in the price of loans that banks from one country make to borrowers resident in another. We use a bank‐level panel data set spanning all U.K.‐resident banks between 1997Q3 and 2010Q1. After nationalization, foreign banks reduced their fraction of British loans by about 11% and increased their effective interest rates by about 70 basis points. In contrast, nationalized British banks did not significantly change either their loan mix or effective interest rates.     

Have Financial Statements Become Less Informative? Evidence from the Ability of Financial Ratios to Predict Bankruptcy

Using a hazard model, we examine secular changes in the ability of financial statement data to predict bankruptcy from 1962 to 2002. We identify three trends in financial reporting that could influence predictive ability with respect to bankruptcy: FASB standards, the perceived increase in discretionary financial reporting behavior, and the increase in unrecognized assets and obligations. A parsimonious three-variable model provides significant explanatory power throughout the time period, with only a slight deterioration in predictive power from the first to the second time period. The striking feature of the results is the robustness of the predictive models over a forty-year period.JEL Classification: M41, G14, G33, C41     

Asian Financial Cooperation as Seen From Europe

In fact, I am convinced that steps to promote the Asian bond market have the potential to make a contribution to monetary and financial cooperation in Asia that goes beyond simply deepening and enhancing the efficiency of today's bond markets. Let me explain what I have in mind by looking at Asian monetary cooperation through the European rear-view mirror. In doing so, I will first make some broad-brush comparisons between Asian and European developments and then present some observations on the forces that, in my mind, have driven the process of cooperation in Europe - leaving it to you to decide whether a similar development could be expected in Asia.     

Does Financial Openness Matter in the Relationship Between Financial Development and Income Distribution in Latin America?

This article examines the effect of financial development on income distribution by analyzing a sample of Latin American countries according to their degree of financial openness for the 1990–2011 period. The period includes the time before and after financial liberalization for most of the countries in the region. As the literature provides inconclusive results regarding the relationship between financial development and income inequality, we aim to determine whether financial openness plays a role in this relationship. Our results provide an explanation for why some countries regardless of their degree of financial openness cannot achieve a reduction in income inequality.     

Does Inflation Targeting Help Reduce Financial Dollarization?

We examine whether adopting an inflation‐targeting regime helps reduce financial dollarization as predicted by Ize and Levy Yeyati's ( 2003 ) portfolio model. To address the self‐selection problem of policy adoption, we apply a variety of propensity score matching methods to a large sample of 106 developing countries for the years 1985–2004. We find strong evidence that inflation targeting has large and significant treatment effects on lowering both actual financial dollarization and the model implied minimum variance portfolio dollarization. Our results are robust to alternative samples and model specifications and also to control for additional factors in postmatching regressions.     

Financial advisors: A case of babysitters?

We use two data sets, one from a large brokerage and another from a major bank, to ask: (i) whether financial advisors are more likely to be matched with poorer, uninformed investors or with richer and experienced investors; (ii) how advised accounts actually perform relative to self-managed accounts; (iii) whether the contribution of independent and bank advisors is similar. We find that advised accounts offer on average lower net returns and inferior risk-return tradeoffs (Sharpe ratios). Trading costs contribute to outcomes, as advised accounts feature higher turnover, consistent with commissions being the main source of advisor income. Results are robust to controlling for investor and local area characteristics. The results apply with stronger force to bank advisors than to independent financial advisors, consistent with greater limitations on bank advisory services.     

Do Peer Firms Affect Corporate Financial Policy?

We show that peer firms play an important role in determining corporate capital structures and financial policies. In large part, firms' financing decisions are responses to the financing decisions and, to a lesser extent, the characteristics of peer firms. These peer effects are more important for capital structure determination than most previously identified determinants. Furthermore, smaller, less successful firms are highly sensitive to their larger, more successful peers, but not vice versa. We also quantify the externalities generated by peer effects, which can amplify the impact of changes in exogenous determinants on leverage by over 70%.     

宏道与Answer Financial搭建保险应答中心

2001年4月6日,宏道公司宣布,知名的技术型保险代理公司 Answer Financial 选择宏道公司的软件搭建其新的 Answercenter.com 网站,该网站是公司的保险应答中心,目前为1550万客户提供服     

An Analysis of Tianjin＇ s Financial Development

经济发展与金融发展之间的关系已经被国内外许多经济学家所证明。近年来天津金融业取得了较快发展,为天津经济发展提供了显著的金融支持。本文以金融业的绝对规模、相对规模以及金融效率为维度,对天津银行业、证券业和保险业的发展状况进行了纵向梳理和横向比较分析,考察了天津金融发展面临的优势、劣势、存在的机会与威胁,进而从政府、银行业、证券业、保险业等方面提出了推动天津金融发展的政策建议。     

Do Lending Relationships Affect Corporate Financial Policies?

This paper provides new evidence on how lending relationships impact firms’ financing and investment decisions. I find that lending relationships have a significant impact on leverage ratios, issuance choices, and the investment structures of relationship borrowers. The influence of relationships is heightened for financially constrained firms. I find a significant decrease in leverage, net debt issuing, and investment activity in the aftermath of lender‐specific shocks to lending relationships, including announcements of bank write‐downs and downgrades in banks’ credit ratings. My findings are robust to controlling for confounding effects that might arise due to unobserved demand and relationship changes.     

Financial Supply Chain： An Innovating Research on the Loan Business Model of Commercial Banks in the Post Financial Crisis Era

本文通过扩展传统Shapley数值建模理论的基本假定,研究了金融供应链群态融资模式的产出绩效和风险结构,论证了合作主体收益分配的改进路径;基于正向边际和信息增益的假定,研究了中小企业边际竞争力提升的环境和条件,并由此得出了金融供应链这一新型融资模式的存续机制和运行原理;建立在供应链系统风险结构分解的基础上,本文首次定义了行业特征的产出离差和金融供应链系统的稳定系数,分别计量经济个体与组合生产的系统性风险;通过引入动态价值评估模式,论证了金融供应链在我国弱势信贷市场实践中的重要意义。